List of Worst Bottlenecks in San Diego (2013)

[andy3175]

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/feb/21/traffic-transportation-driving-san-diego-caltrans/

The worst freeway bottleneck in San Diego County last year was the morning slog on Interstate 805 north at Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, according to a U-T San Diego analysis of regional tie-ups.

The Clairemont Mesa crunch dethroned North County's Barham Drive backup, on State Route 78 in San Marcos, as the region's supreme trouble spot.

Caltrans officials say Clairemont Mesa's 805 bottleneck, which ranked third worst in 2012, rose to the top because two other notorious jams loosened up. Those were Barham at the 78, and La Jolla's gridlocked stretch of 805 at Nobel Drive.

The Clairemont crunch is likely to stay high on the list the next couple years. No major relief is in sight until late 2015 when Caltrans expects to finish new carpool lanes on 805, extending north of Route 52, according to Caltrans officials.

Overall traffic congestion is piling back up on San Diego County freeways, a trend officials attribute to the slowly improving economy. Traffic, they said, is still short of levels before the Great Recession, which caused a 10 percent traffic drop-off. The top bottlenecks of 2013 are found on the region's traditionally crowded interstates 15 and 5 and Routes 163, 56, 52 and 67.

Complete List:

Top 10 worst bottlenecks in 2013

1) Interstate 805 at Clairemont Mesa Boulevard – northbound, morning

Relief won't arrive at this new titan of tie-ups will until late 2015, at the earliest, when Caltrans expects to finish new 805 carpool lanes extending north of Route 52.

2) State Route 67 at Mussey Grade Road – northbound, afternoon

This backcountry bottleneck jumped up eight spots in 2013, the first full year in which traffic sensors measured this stretch. A Caltrans spokesman said the congestion near Mussey Grade is caused not necessarily by highway conditions but by the traffic signal at 67 and Dye Road. The agency is studying long-term plans to improve Dye, just north of Mussey Grade.

3) State Route 163 at Robinson Avenue – southbound, afternoon

Traffic narrows from four lanes to two on this old highway through Balboa Park, which is used heavily by travelers headed to downtown San Diego. There are no plans, or room, for freeway expansion, officials said. This bottleneck moved up three places in 2013.

4) Interstate 805 at Nobel Drive – southbound, afternoon

This La Jolla area bottleneck has remained a commuting headache for years. But relief is on the way: Two I-805 carpool lanes are expected to open in March from Carroll Canyon Road to Interstate 5. The project had been expected to open last summer.

5) State Route 78 at Twin Oaks Valley Road — eastbound, afternoon

This North County tangle near Cal State San Marcos rocketed up the list from No. 56 two years ago. It takes the place of Barham Drive as the worst bottleneck on the notoriously clogged 78 corridor. Carpool lanes are planned along the 78 corridor by 2020, though funding has not been secured for the project.

6) Interstate 5 at Lomas Santa Fe – northbound, afternoon

At 4.7 miles, this Solana Beach slowdown is one of the longest slogs on the bottleneck tally. It fell out of the Top 10 list after carpool lanes opened in 2008. But it has returned for the third straight year, and I-5 expansion won't start until at least 2015.

7) State Route 56 at Carmel Country Road – eastbound, afternoon

Direct ramps to I-5 are needed to fix this Carmel Valley crawl, but those won't be built until 2020 at the earliest. Caltrans is working with the city of San Diego on possible short-term upgrades such as new merging lanes.

8) Interstate 15 at Balboa Avenue — southbound, afternoon

This central San Diego snarl snuck into the Top 10 list after ranking No. 11 two years ago. It sits a few miles south of I-15's next-generation carpool lanes, also called express lanes. The Balboa stretch of I-15 is slated to get its own express lanes by 2020.

9) State Route 52 at Santo Road – eastbound, afternoon

This Tierrasanta tangle is in for some major improvements, though not for several decades. A regional blueprint calls for building a $900 million express lane corridor on Route 52 from I-15 all the way to Route 125 ---- by 2040.

10) State Route 163 at Robinson Avenue – northbound, morning

This downtown area backup got bigger, sapping an extra 50,000 vehicle hours due to delays, compared with two years ago. Officials hope that the upcoming launch of express bus routes between downtown San Diego and communities to the north, south and east could chip away at this corridor's frustrating gridlock.

Source of information is the Caltrans Performance Measurement System (PeMS):

http://pems.dot.ca.gov/

The traffic data displayed on the map is collected in real-time from over 25,000 individual detectors. These sensors span the freeway system across all major metropolitan areas of the State of California.

PeMS is also an Archived Data User Service (ADUS) that provides over ten years of data for historical analysis. It integrates a wide variety of information from Caltrans and other local agency systems including:

Traffic Detectors
Incidents
Lane Closures
Toll Tags
Census Traffic Counts
Vehicle Classification
Weight-In-Motion
Roadway Inventory

Regards,
Andy

[TheStranger]

Something I wonder:

Has the effect of closing the 40th Street gap along 15 ever been measured out (particularly in relation to 163 and to 805 between 8 and 15)?  Was 40th Street ever on the list of "worst bottlenecks" pre-freeway?

Still amazing that that only opened up in the last decade or so, I recall seeing the street portion on 1990s roadmaps all the time.

[ARMOURERERIC]

Item 2 has been an issue for 15 years now.  If you have an education in traffic engineering these numbers would be scary:  39000 ADT on a 2 lane country road with about 10 driveway accesses per mile.

When I was last involved with transportation planning in Ramona in 2008, the solution at that time was going to be a county built project where Dye Road was to be extended through the SE quadrant of Ramona to hook up to CA 78 at Magnolia on the east side of town.  Dye would also be extended back onto it's old abandoned ROW to hook up to CA 67 right at Mussey Grade, at one point of was planned to be grade separated with only WB Dye to SB 67, and NB 67 to EB Dye movements. All other movements would be provided at the existing intersection.

Essentially 1/3 of traffic at the existing 67/Dye intersection is going to/from San Diego and the San Diego Country Estates, a massive 1980's era subdivision SE of Ramona.

The remainder of improvements, widening 67 to CA experessway standards for $400M is still programmed, but I just can't see it ever passing enviromental muster.

[sdmichael]

From what I've seen heading to/from Ramona, morning backups are SB from Poway Rd until at least Mt Woodson, if not further. Afternoon backups are from Ramona south to at least Mt Woodson. By backups, I mean a SOLID line of cars. It looks pretty bad.

[andy3175]

The remainder of improvements, widening 67 to CA experessway standards for $400M is still programmed, but I just can't see it ever passing enviromental muster.

Based on the existing traffic on 67, along with the potential for additional development in and around Ramona, leads me to believe that 67 will have to be reconfigured, expanded, or otherwise relieved due to the significant amount of traffic and seemingly high accident rates (when I hear there's a fatal head-on collision, it seems like it's more likely to happen somewhere on 67 as opposed to most other state highways and freeways).

A conversion of 67 from two-lane rural road to four to six lane expressway or freeway would be great, especially if the two directions of traffic can be separated by a significant median for the entire length of state highway.

Regards,
Andy

[ARMOURERERIC]

Onr of the enviro battle cries against 67 improvements is that if 67 is ever upgraded to an expressway to Ramona, look for large scale subdivisions to follow in Santa Ysabel, Wynola and Julian.  Now that may be true, but "city water" stops just east of Ramona

[sdmichael]

I would say that San Diego Country Estates is a GOOD example of what could happen in the Ramona area with better road access. Rancho Guejito is another example. That is a huge area that the owners want to develop. Water supply would be a big issue for any of those new development areas no matter what the road access. While an aside, it is one of the biggest arguments AGAINST desalination. With a greater supply of water, far more developments could occur. Just take a look at post-LA Aqueduct Los Angeles as an example of that premise.

[OCGuy81]

3) State Route 163 at Robinson Avenue – southbound, afternoon

Traffic narrows from four lanes to two on this old highway through Balboa Park, which is used heavily by travelers headed to downtown San Diego. There are no plans, or room, for freeway expansion, officials said. This bottleneck moved up three places in 2013.

I have long wondered if there is ANY solution to 163 south of the 8.  It is pretty much always a mess for the reasons stated above (old freeway, no room to expand).  But, reading this, I guess it will just continue to get worse.

Beautiful stretch of freeway, though. 

[sdmichael]

At least part of the bottleneck could be helped by changing the layout for the exit lanes. Part of the backup is the weaving between the 8 and the last Washington exit. How that could be done is tricky but possible.

[agentsteel53]

Caltrans officials say Clairemont Mesa's 805 bottleneck, which ranked third worst in 2012, rose to the top because two other notorious jams loosened up. Those were Barham at the 78, and La Jolla's gridlocked stretch of 805 at Nobel Drive.

Nobel and Clairemont Mesa are about 3 miles apart.  let me say from experience that the segment in between is no spring picnic either.  southbound is just as bad in the afternoon. 

in fact, I would argue that southbound is worse because northbound has to be avoided between about 6 and 10am, and if you get there within an hour of those you're getting bad traffic at the 52/805 merge but once you get in the fast lane, you're good to go.  as for southbound, it can be wedged from 2 to 7:30pm (as late as 10pm on a Friday) and every lane is slow.

[andy3175]

At least part of the bottleneck could be helped by changing the layout for the exit lanes. Part of the backup is the weaving between the 8 and the last Washington exit. How that could be done is tricky but possible.

Agreed, although it would take a ton of money to make this happen. I've heard rumblings that a configuration of the SR 163 and Washington Street interchange is planned in the future, namely to realign some of the ramps and allow reclamation of some of the space taken up by the interchange for some other purpose (maybe a park?). I doubt that effort (which is unfunded and way out in the future as far as I know) would entail any reconfiguration of how 163 narrows from four to two through lanes south of I-8.

Regards,
Andy